The Romans, or anyone with some knowledge of Romanesco, will know very well the expression “it’s a Cambodia” that signals a great chaos, something extremely tiring and difficult, hostile. Cambogia—the film written and directed by Valerio Lundini that was presented at the Festa del Cinema di Roma and that will hit theatres on March 18 distributed by 01 Distribution—that title is not accidental, even though it is by no means tiring or hostile, indeed very funny in staging a chaotic and unusual situation.
Cambogia starts telling with tones hovering between realism and hyperbole a Roman criminal world similar to the one described in many recent films and series on the subject, a world made of clashes between gangs, shootouts, feuds, betrayals and ambitions pursued through violence. And in this world there is also Tramezzino, a chunky, mid-level hood who works for a gang led by the very ruthless character of Giorgio Montanini. The fact is that, at a certain point, something happens: something happens that stops, and we realize that the world we’ve seen up to that moment is the world told by a TV series that is titled, precisely, Cambogia, and that Tramezzino is the character played by a well-known and rising Italian actor named Valerio De Nicolais.
Up to here, one might say, everything normal, a bit of metacinema: and yet yes but also no, because after that stop, when the images of Cambogia become the set of Cambogia, something strange happens. It happens that in the real world, in the body of Valerio De Nicolais, ends up his character, Tramezzino, while the real Valerio remains stuck in the raw, grim and violent world of the series in which he stars. Both of them will have to try to understand what happened, and how to return to the world, to the worlds, to which they respectively belong.
Here below, a clip from Cambogia in which Valerio is in the degraded world of the series, and in which also appear two important cast names such as Benedetta Porcaroli and Gabriel Montesi, and the poster of the film:
In this film which he wrote with Francesco Agostini and Matteo Tiberia, Lundini tells with a certain unsuspected coherence the tale of the body swap, with Tramezzino ending up in Valerio’s world, all the sequins, rhinestones and hypocrisies of the showbiz world pushed to the paroxysm and caricature, and with Valerio risking his life at every street corner in the world of the Cambogia series (a steroidal and parodic version of things like Gomorra or Suburra). And he works by good-naturedly poking fun at both universes. Which, in truth, is only about one, since the parallel dimension of Cambogia (the series) exists only by virtue of someone who conceived it, wrote it and shot it.
And among Lundini’s targets are also things that we who write about cinema know all too well: from films with improbable titles and plots, to press conferences where the outlets have not very fanciful names. Also about this, starting from this, we spoke with Lundini during the interview you see below.
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